An administrator is generally a
person who is in charge of installing and running the server. A
user could be anyone who is using, or
wants to use, any part of the PostgreSQL system. These terms should not be
interpreted too narrowly; this documentation set does not have
fixed presumptions about system administration procedures.

We use /usr/local/pgsql/ as the root
directory of the installation and /usr/local/pgsql/data as the directory with the
database files. These directories may vary on your site, details
can be derived in the Administrator's
Guide.

In a command synopsis, brackets ([
and ]) indicate an optional phrase or
keyword. Anything in braces ({ and
}) and containing vertical bars
(|) indicates that you must choose one
alternative.

Examples will show commands executed from various accounts and
programs. Commands executed from a Unix shell may be preceded
with a dollar sign ("$"). Commands executed from particular user
accounts such as root or
postgres are specially flagged
and explained. SQL commands
may be preceded with "=>" or will have no leading prompt,
depending on the context.

Note: The notation for flagging commands is not
universally consistent throughout the documentation set.
Please report problems to the documentation mailing list
<pgsql-docs@postgresql.org>.